Hawaii coffee farmers hope lawsuit settlements guarantee the Kona in your cup is real
Growers on Hawaii’s Big Island use chemical analysis to accuse retailers and coffee makers of passing off commodity beans as Kona. Kona coffee dates to the 1820s, when missionaries started planting the crop. Plantations began springing up 20 years later but faded out toward the end of the century as labor costs rose. Immigrants from Portugal and then Japan bought up the land, dividing it into small plots that they ran for generations as family farms. Advertisement Contemporary farmers are a mix of their descendants and newcomers willing to take on the region’s punishing four-wheel-drive ...
Source: latimes.com